Howard Young - Böcker

The United States social security system is the nation's largest social insurance program. As such, it has a far-reaching impact throughout the economy, influencing not only old-age economic security but also many behaviors, including corporate employment policy, retirement patterns, and personal saving. In the past, the system's universal coverage and generous benefits ensured popular support to a degree enjoyed by no other form of "big government" social spending.Yet over two-thirds of all Americans today believe that the social security system will face bankruptcy by the time they retire. The question of social security reform-how to reform the system or whether the system needs reform at all-is the subject of heated debate at all levels of government, in the media, and among workers, pensioners, and employers.Prospects for Social Security Reform informs the debate by exploring why the system is at a crossroads today and what to do about it. Contributors detail the size and nature of the problem, explain views of key "stakeholders" regarding reform options, and report new evidence on how reform might affect the economy. Research findings and public opinion polls are analyzed, as are lessons from other countries experimenting with new ways to deliver old-age benefit promises.No other volume includes as diverse and expert a set of perspectives on reform and privatization as those gathered here from economists, actuaries, employers, investment managers, and representatives of organized labor. Among its chapters is the path-breaking study "Social Security Money's Worth," the 1999 winner of the TIAA-CREF's Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security.

Recent reports predict that, barring any changes, the Social Security program will become insolvent--no longer able to pay promised benefits in full--around the year 2030, well within the retirement years of the baby boom generation. They also predict that the trust fund will stop being a net contributor and become instead a net claimant on the federal budget in the year 2013--much earlier than previously thought. With the world population aging, the increasing number of dependent senior citizens in all countries will become a major public policy issue that will have to be addressed continually over the next fifty years.Social Security: What Role for the Future? takes a fresh look at the questions essential to understanding the future of old-age protection under Social Security. Experts in economics, actuarial science, and public policy examine such front-burner issues as the effects that variables such as mortality, births, inflation, wage levels, and pension benefits will have on the income of future retirees; the implications and effects of alternative levels of funding and financing on Social Security; and the prospects for publicly and privately financed income programs. The authors conclude with an examination of social security programs around the world and pose critical questions about the future direction of Social Security in the United States--questions that Congress and the American public will have to address in the coming years.The contributors include Robert H. Binstock, Barry P. Bosworth, Robert Brown, Gary Burtless, David M. Cutler, Jagadeesh Gokhale, Edward Gramlich, Stephen Goss, Robert Hagemann, Dalmer Hoskins, Estelle James, Diane Macunovich, David Mullins, Alicia H. Munnell, Robert J. Myers, Martha Phillips, Sylvester Schieber, Margaret Simms, C. Eugene Steuerle, and Carolyn Weaver.Copublished with the National Academy of Social Insurance